We’re delighted to bring you the news that our client, award-winning UK architects and masterplanners, Stephen George + Partners have come together in a joint venture with international specialist health planners, architects and clinical interior designers, TAHPI to deliver a powerful new methodology to improve healthcare estate planning across the UK.

Sue Riddlestone OBE, CEO & co-founder, Bioregional, writes an exclusive piece for LocalGov outlining how local authorities can play a leading role in a green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

There’s lots of rumination on the future of the workplace out there at the moment, but Stephen George + Partners’ Geoff Ward cuts through a lot of the nonsense in his latest blog piece. Workplace culture may change in a post-Covid-19 world, he says, but people need to collaborate and the offices of the future will be broadly the same as they ever were.

Despite the inevitable slow-down of building activity during lockdown, it’s been encouraging to see the English planning system adapt to enable planning and development to continue during the coronavirus epidemic. We were delighted to see our client Dexter Moren Associates (DMA) win significant planning approvals this month and help them achieve recognition for their achievements.

Recognition for the importance of the neighbourhood centre as a focal point for residential developments is growing. However, where traditional neighbourhood centres used to mean retail, there is a developing shift towards a mix of uses, including residential, workspace, healthcare and other community facilities, according to a new report by our client Stephen George + Partners (SGP).

The health crisis brought about by Covid-19 has arrived at a time when the UK’s ageing population is growing – the Office for National Statistics projects that more than 24 percent of people living in the UK will be aged 65 or older by 2042. At the same time, older people are particularly vulnerable to the current Coronavirus outbreak and may equally be at risk in future epidemic and pandemic scenarios. We therefore need to start having a conversation now about where and how people in the UK should live in later life.

Good news for Belfast city centre as our client TODD Architects submits plans for an aparthotel and office development opposite the BBC’s HQ on Ormeau Avenue. The new landmark development, Bedford Yard, will deliver approximately 10,000sq ft lettable office space and a 154-room aparthotel with spectacular vistas across the city by refurbishing a vacant four-storey red brick former warehouse with newbuild aparthotel behind.

Great news for our client Stephen George + Partners (SGP) following the completion of the third and final phase of St Modwen Park Doncaster. Having masterplanned the whole 27-acre site, SGP successfully designed and delivered the last £7 million phase, comprising more than 108,000 sq ft of industrial space, in February 2020.

We’ve been following progress on important voluntary work being carried out by our client Urban Edge Architecture for a number of months now. So we’re thrilled we can finally share some news! A team of volunteers from the practice have carried out extensive refurbishment works to help Mindspace bring an unoccupied building on Broad Street, Stamford, back into use and this week, the mental health charity has been able to move into its new and larger premises.

It’s always a pleasure to follow our client’s projects as they progress. We first started talking to TODD Architects in 2018 about the planned redevelopment to transform Queen’s Parade on Bangor’s seafront in Northern Ireland and last summer we were able to give the world a tantalising glimpse of those plans. Planning has now been submitted for the £50 million scheme which will see Bangor’s Marine Gardens returned to its heyday of Victorian seaside elegance whilst creating a vibrant mixed-use development of residential, hotel, office, retail and cultural and recreation floorspace in the heart of the town centre.

Paul Wells, Partner at Dexter Moren Associates appeared in Property Week this week discussing how hotels are co-opting serviced apartments while co-living takes up the slack on extended stay. A few years ago, notes Paul, some predicted that new accommodation models, including serviced apartments, aparthotels and online platforms airbnb, would erode the market share for traditional hotels.  This has not been the case, and the latter has continued to thrive attracting near record levels of investment in the UK in 2018. Hotels are not only learning from these newer models but also, in some cases, co-opting them either as a fully integrated offer, or creating a dual-branded concept.